Cosmic by celeste, p.1
Cosmic by Celeste, page 1
COSMIC BY CELESTE
(Music Mayhem, Volume #1)
by Wendy Cheairs
Cosmic by Celeste © Wendy Cheairs (2025)
Edited by [insert here]
Cover design by Temptation Creations
CHAPTER ONE
At dawn, the city is a wash of pearl and concrete. Forty floors above street level, Chic Alchemy’s research lab sits in its serene capsule, suspended between the too-bright future and the barely forgotten night. The moment Celeste disarms the security panel, the automatic lights flicker on in neat succession, illuminating the lab’s glass-and-steel heart in a chill white.
She pauses for a heartbeat on the threshold, surveying the room. It’s as if time, for a moment, isn’t ticking, an illusion she clings to, even knowing how many hours are left until the executive team arrives for the first round of olfactory reviews. Every bench and fume hood gleams. The racks of pipettes are arranged by volume and color, test vials stand at military attention, and the wall of raw materials, hundreds of essences, absolutes, and isolates, waits like a library of potions. A subtle scent lingers, the ghost of hundreds of earlier experiments: jasmine, violet, benzoin, and the faintest trace of sharp, bitter green.
Celeste shucks her coat and gloves in one smooth motion, ballet-trained even in gestures as pedestrian as getting dressed for work. She wears a simple black turtleneck and cigarette pants, her armor, which doesn’t distract from her hands, which everyone says are her most accurate instrument. She ties her platinum hair back in a low knot and regards her reflection in the autoclave glass, tracing the familiar, aquiline lines of her nose with the ghost of a smile. She looks out of phase with her own body, much like a film still is different from absolute motion.
She rolls up her sleeves, powers on the workstation, and runs her fingers over her day’s agenda: “Cosmic- Iteration 11.” The new line. Her line, if she could deliver it. Celeste breathes in through her nose, slow and deep, calibrating her senses the way a pianist limbers her fingers before the first chord. She checks the scale's balance. Zeroes it twice. Measures 2 microliters of bergamot from a chilled ampule, the liquid gold beading at the tip of the pipette. She lets the droplet fall into a tiny, etched-glass beaker, already half-filled with distilled alcohol. It disperses in a swift, swirling ghost.
From the raw materials shelf, she selects the second and third notes, iris, and black pepper. The iris root, pulverized and aged, yields a scent that is both powdery and cold; the black pepper, with a bite at the tip of the tongue, lingers in the mind. She weighs, measures, and combines, her hands steady and quick, her eyes flicking between the numbers on the scale and the faintly luminous liquid in the beaker.
One by one, she builds the fragrance's skeleton, each addition transforming the base in subtle and profound ways. She’s working not with scent but with memory, with anticipation, constructing something that doesn’t exist until it’s inhaled and then lives on in the dark synapses of whoever breathes it in.
She stirs the first draft with a glass rod, decants a half-milliliter into a testing vial, and draws a white scent strip from the box. She dips, waits ten seconds, and lifts the strip to her nose.
There is a silence that only the truly obsessed can recognize: the hush of all the world’s ambient noise as the brain’s attention narrows to the question, What is this? She closes her eyes. The opening is fresh, almost lemony, but the iris chills it, draws it inward; the pepper, she’s glad she risked more than the formula suggested, flickers at the edge. But it’s missing something. The echo doesn’t linger the way she wants; the scent dies too soon like the trail of a shooting star snuffed out in a bright, cold sky.
She notes this in the lab book, carefully blocks capitals, and then moves to the next vial. Her process is both science and obsession. Every time she tilts a beaker or punctures a septum with a syringe, it’s with the expectation that the next moment might be the one that changes everything. Sometimes, she loses track of time. Sometimes, she doesn’t want to find it again.
When she adds a mere drop of lavender absolute, a strange tension moves through her. She sets the vial down, turns away, and leans back against the workbench. It’s not the lavender’s fault, she tells herself. The oil is sharp and alive, with enough indolic funk to remind her of sweating, tanning skin, and endless violet fields.
Provence. She’s there, for a moment, as vividly as she was ten years ago: twenty-two, green as grass, elbow-deep in the lavender harvest at her aunt’s farm outside Gordes. Her aunt’s hands were in her hair, her hands stained purple from the blooms. The first time she’d ever distilled a fragrance, the old copper alembic burbling on the farmhouse stove, the air in the kitchen so thick with steam and lavender oil she thought she might drown in it. The night following was spent with someone whose name she barely remembered but whose skin, sweat, and laughter still flicker at the edge of certain scents.
She breathes out hard, breaking the memory’s hold, and returns to her work. The lavender is necessary, but not as she’d added it; it’s too direct, not the whispered memory she wants. She adjusts the formula, sketches out three alternatives, and begins again.
This time, she uses a CO2 extraction of lavender, which is subtler and less aggressive. Pair it with a vanillin resin, a touch of orris butter, and a synthetic accord supposed to evoke “cosmic dust.” Marketing’s idea, not hers. She snorts at the thought but admits, privately, that there’s a strange, metallic sense of infinity in the accord. She pours, swirls, waits, and tests. Each time, she scribbles notes, changing only one variable at a time, inching closer to something inevitable.
As the sun creeps higher, light pours through the west windows, painting her bench with shifting, golden rectangles. The city outside is audible now, distant but constant, and the illusion of timelessness frays at the edges. Celeste feels the hours slip away, but doesn’t care. By the third try, her thumb and forefinger are stained with microdoses of scent, and her inner wrist is a gallery of faint, overlapping streaks. She cleans her skin with alcohol, waits a minute, then tries again.
The final blend is a risk. Celeste knows it as soon as she smells it. There’s a note, almost an error, an electrical tang at the very end, like ozone before a storm. It shouldn’t work. She dabs it onto a fresh strip, waves it twice, and inhales.
Everything stops. For the first time in three days, she smiles, tight-lipped, barely there, but genuine. The opening is volatile and restless, but the heart is powdery and distant, and the finish shivers in the nose, a feeling almost as much as a smell. She tries it again to be sure. Yes. There’s the resonance. The afterimage. The skin memory that will linger.
She cleans up methodically, even though she wants to run to her supervisor’s office and force the sample under her nose. Patience. The formula is written down, the bench is wiped clean, the tools are sanitized, and the completed vials are racked and labeled in her neat, blocky script. “Cosmic #14 – 8:17 a.m. – Celeste B.”
She stands at the window, letting the light wash her face, and allows herself to feel, for a moment, how close she is to everything she ever wanted. Then she sees her reflection in the glass: platinum hair, a halo, and a lab coat as bright as new snow, and she remembers that perfection is never permanent. There’s always another test, another round, another layer to strip away.
But for now, she allows herself a smile, thin and private, as the city below wakes up and the future rushes in.
CHAPTER TWO
By late afternoon, the light in the lab has softened, with sharper angles and cooler shadows. A courier from the marketing floor has left a heavy, foam-lined case at the end of Celeste’s bench. “For your review,” reads the attached memo in tight, professional cursive. She pulls the lid open with both hands, exposing four prototype bottles, each one nested in its black velvet trough.
There’s something performative in the way she lifts each bottle, cradling it by the neck as if it’s a small, rare animal. The first, midnight blue glass, cut with an asymmetrical star at the base, catches the overhead LEDs and turns them into a field of fractured constellations. She tilts the bottle this way and that, watching the interplay of shape and shadow, then sets it on the bench and jots a quick note: “Depth good. Shape, awkward in hand. The base is not stable enough.”
The second is a clear crystal, inset with a ring of delicate silver filigree. It’s elegant but almost too literal, the star motif repeated ad infinitum around the shoulder. Celeste sighs, runs her fingertip along the edge, and shakes her head. She imagines the average customer: Does this bottle belong in a purse or a jewelry box? Is it memorable, or does it slip from memory as soon as the lid clicks shut? “Too decorative,” she writes. “Distracts from scent. Weight- pleasant, but the cap is hard to remove.”
Bottle three is a deep, matte purple, nearly opaque. The surface is etched with a faint ripple pattern, like a pond after a stone is thrown. Celeste lifts it to eye level, holds it so the window behind diffuses the color into a kind of liquid shadow, and tries to imagine the bottle filled with her own latest blend. She thinks of the way the scent opens: volatile, shimmering, then cool. This bottle, she decides, comes closest to what she’s built in the vial. “Color: excellent match. Texture is novel. Consider shifting the tone bluer; the current shade could read funereal.”
The final prototype is again made of clear glass, but this time, it is thickly layered, giving the impression of a star frozen in ice. It’s heavier than the rest, and when she uncaps it, the stopper emits a gratifying pop, like champagne or the crackle of bre aking lake ice in winter. Celeste smiles almost involuntarily. She sets the bottle in the sunlight and watches as it casts crystalline shadows on the white surface. “Sensory engagement: strong. Maybe too weighty for retail. Love the tactile closure.”
Her notes are concise, but her margin comments sprawl; she sketches possible alterations and annotates each suggestion concerning the perfume’s concept: “Cosmic,” “void,” and “afterglow.” She’s not precious about her handwriting; the script lurches and twists wherever her mind races ahead of her pen. She moves the bottles into rows and columns, comparing, combining, and, in one case, attempting to swap stoppers between models to test compatibility.
As she works, her hair slips from its tight knot and falls forward in loose, metallic sheets. She pushes it back with an impatient swipe, then tucks a stray lock behind her left ear, leaving a faint fingerprint on the side of her face. The gesture is so ingrained she doesn’t notice it; it’s the same movement she used to make as a teenager, bent over a chemistry set in her parents’ attic in Marseilles.
She whittles the field down to two finalists: the matte purple and the ice star. She lines them up, side by side, and tries to see them as a stranger would. A splash of color on a vanity, a prism in a department store’s harsh light. For a long minute, she says nothing, simply weighing them in her hands, eyes half-closed, searching for the one that will become the vessel of her work.
Finally, she circles her choice on the marketing survey. She writes in the comments, “Purple design speaks to the subtlety and surprise of the formula. The tactile element is a plus; the surface draws the hand. Recommend redesigning the cap to make removal easier. Would accept blue-violet shift if marketing requires a stronger celestial reference.” She underlines “tactile” twice.
She finishes the paperwork, sets the sample bottles aside, and leans back, rubbing at the tension in her neck. The room is quiet, save for the whir of the ventilation system and the hum of distant printers. She glances at the clock after five, and in the window’s reflection, she catches herself in profile, hair askew, mouth set in its usual ambiguous line.
She grins barely and begins packing the prototypes back in their case, thinking of how many small, invisible choices a finished perfume embodies. The world will see only the last result, the bottle, the label, and the liquid inside, but here, in the interstitial space between scent and vessel, she feels something close to ownership. To creation.
The sun outside is nearly gone. Celeste stands for a moment, bottles arrayed before her, and tucks her hair behind both ears as if bracing herself for whatever comes next.
The restaurant features all-brass railings and deep-set banquettes, with every surface engineered to soften the city’s sharpness. Here, in the dusk, voices blend in low, mellow frequencies, and even the servers move with the easy choreography of a long-running play. Celeste arrives first, led by a hostess in impossibly high heels, and claims the corner booth with a view of Park Avenue’s dusk traffic. She glances at her phone to be sure she’s early, then tucks it away.
The menu is leather-bound and heavy, with an ornate typeface; she traces a finger down the cocktail list and orders a gin and tonic, nothing infused, nothing smoked, clean and cold. She’s halfway through the first slice of cucumber when Mia sweeps in, cheeks flushed, scarf undone and trailing from one elbow. Mia always looks as if she’s in motion, even when she’s standing still; tonight, her hair is loose and a little wild, the color not quite as bright as the last time they met, but still somehow perfect.
“Oh my god, I’m late, aren’t I?” Mia says, sliding into the booth, fingers already dancing over the rim of her water glass.
“By precisely seventy-five seconds,” Celeste says. “Which is a personal best.”
Mia grins, revealing a dimple so deep that it looks like it’s been painted on. “Are you still keeping logs?”
“Only on alternate Thursdays,” Celeste says, and they both laugh, the sound easy and familiar.
Sophia arrives a few minutes later, traffic-bound and trailing apology texts. She’s taller than both of them, bone-pale, with black hair chopped into a geometric bob. Her style is resolutely minimalist: a plain navy shirt, severe silver jewelry, and no hint of color except for a single streak of blue at her temple. She takes in the table, the menu, the already-emptied bread basket, and says, “Did I miss anything scandalous?”
“Mia’s engaged,” Celeste says, deadpan, and Mia chokes on her Negroni.
“I am not engaged,” Mia says, then softens. “But I might be soon, and it’s making me insane.”
Sophia raises an eyebrow, pours herself water, and waits. The silence is an old trick; Mia can’t resist filling it.
“We’ve been together three years, he’s met my parents twice, and last night he,” She glances at Celeste. “He asked if I wanted to look at rings. Together.”
“That is adorable,” Sophia says, and Celeste nods, smiling a genuine smile, if a little complicated. There’s a flicker of something in her expression, envy maybe, or the ache of being reminded.
Mia sees it, of course, and kicks her lightly under the table. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one with the actual career.”
“It’s not a competition,” Celeste says, but she finds herself touching her left hand, thumb circling the base of her ring finger. It’s bare, obviously, but she’s never worn jewelry anyway. She lets her hand drop, picks up her gin, and sips.
They talk about work, then Sophia’s latest grant drama at the university, Mia’s ongoing war with the hospital’s ancient scheduling software, and the endless parade of managers who mistake Celeste for an assistant or an intern, never the lead. The food arrives in bursts: towers of crisp green salad, bowls of spicy mussels, thin coins of steak seared and arrayed like jewelry on a plate. Celeste found herself eating without tasting, letting the noise and color of her friends insulate her from whatever sharpness she’d carried in from the day.
The conversation turns, inevitably, to dating. Mia always wants details, and Sophia wants to know about the “enigma from the marketing department.” Celeste demurs, then relents, recounting her most recent disasters with an air of detached amusement. There was the investment banker who pronounced “Chanel” as if it were a software company, the Pilates instructor who texted mid-date to check her step count. This architect insisted on critiquing every building within a five-block radius.
“Do you even want to date?” Mia asks a little too gently, and Celeste hesitates.
“I want,” She stops, hunts for the correct phrase, then shrugs. “I want to feel like I do when I finish a perfect blend, when everything fits. Like it was always meant to be that way.”
Sophia lifts her glass. “Not everyone can be as passionate about their work as you are about your perfumes.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Celeste says, and the smile she gives them is more wistful than self-deprecating. “I’m waiting for someone who makes me feel the way creating the perfect scent does.”
Mia reaches across the table and covers Celeste’s hand with her own, warm and a little damp from the stem of her glass. “You’re allowed to want it all, you know. Not the job.”
The words hang in the air, heavy but not uncomfortable. Celeste glances around the room; at the table nearest the window, a couple leans close, heads nearly touching, lost in some private orbit. She watches them for a beat, then looks down and finds herself twirling the base of her wineglass, tracing circles on the linen.
“I know,” she says softly. “I know.”
The night slips by, courses giving way to dessert, conversation spinning off in odd, bright tangents. They share bites of cake and argue about the correct ratio of cream to coffee in an affogato. Celeste feels the press of her friends on either side, Mia’s constant warmth, and Sophia’s quiet steadiness, and lets herself sink into it, if only for a while.
When they leave, the city hums with neon and car horns, the air thick with the promise of early summer. The friends hug at the curb, promising, as always, to do this again soon. Celeste stands for a moment, watching them disappear down the avenue, then tucks her hair behind her ear, slides her hands into her pockets, and starts the walk home.
